Live action MOTU movie continued to drop in sales

So 2 weeks into its debut, the new Masters of the Universe live action movie still plummeted in sales, as Variety reported:

“Masters of the Universe,” on the other hand, will have a harder time justifying its mega price tag. The sword-and-planet adventure dropped to No. 5 with $8.6 million from 3,677 locations. It has earned just $45.7 million in North America and $84 million worldwide and, against a nearly $200 million production budget, will leave theaters as one of the year’s biggest bombs. “Masters of the Universe” is based on the ’80s Mattel toy and cartoon, and this kind of turnout suggests the movie isn’t expanding beyond the core fanbase of older males.

Which won't include me. Why, who knows if a lot of what they perceive as a fanbase even bothered attending? Obviously, some did, but it would be silly to assume virtually all did unquestioned. This kind of popcorn fare is really no big deal, and some people who played with the toys in the 80s doubtlessly outgrew that kind of stuff long ago. If the film's story does little to prove itself worth watching no matter what age group it's supposedly aimed at, then it's not hard to guess that's another reason why even veteran toy players and cartoon watchers are uninterested.

Now, with that told, there's a certain something else I've learned about the movie from this BBC report that's decidedly troubling, and makes it additionally hard to care it's collapsed financially:

A schoolgirl said it was "great fun" to be "punched" in the stomach by Sir Idris Elba while filming for a Hollywood movie.

At 13, Delilah O'Riordan worked with Tom Hanks in Here (2024). A year later, classmates at her school in Brentwood, Essex, were shocked to see her face on the big screen yet again.

A live action remake of the 1980s cartoon, Masters of the Universe, hit UK cinemas on 5 May.

"My scene was with Idris Elba. In the scene he punched me in the stomach which was great fun. He's really lovely, and I think it was quite surreal," said O'Riordan.

"We did a few practises and he was like making jokes and things so it was really funny.

Seriously, this is sick, even if what's seen on the screen is simulated. It's not something to joke about even in cinematic terms, and that the BBC would make light of stuff like this is despicable.

And then, I also noticed this UK Guardian article written up after the box office results, where they try to make it sound like everything's hunky-dory despite the poor financial receipts:

So why then does everyone involved in this thing seem so cheerful? “Travis Knight and the entire cast and film-making team have delivered something truly special,” Amazon MGM’s Kevin Wilson gushed to Variety. “This opening is exactly the kind of critical first moment that validates our holistic distribution strategy – building awareness and engagement that will carry well beyond the theatrical window.”

Meanwhile, Knight has been talking up the possibility of sequels, after the movie appeared to introduce He-Man’s twin She-Ra in a mid-credits scene. “With every movie that I’ve ever made, I’ve always imagined where the characters go outside … the bounds of the movie,” Knight told TechRadar. “You want to tell a self-contained story, and I think we’ve done that with this movie, but there are things within the wider mythology that didn’t fit within that, and the She-Ra character was one of them.”

“Adora is also a character that carries a lot of weight with her,” he added. “A lot of people, myself included, love that character, so we wanted to give a little nod to where that could go if we were given the opportunity to tell more stories.” [...]

If weak box office no longer kills commercial movies, that may not be the worst thing ever – because Masters of the Universe actually has a bit too much going for it to be a complete dud. The existence of She-Ra really does give the project franchise potential and Knight’s film is enjoyable enough in a nostalgic sort of way. Is the idea that a modern blockbuster can survive on streaming, toys and audience goodwill alone really so terrible?

But even if all this is true, none of it magically turns a $54m opening against a $200m-plus budget into Top Gun: Maverick. A franchise still needs new fans, not just parents revisiting Eternia, and there’s little evidence just yet that Masters of the Universe has actually managed to find them.

So because they might want to spotlight She-Ra in a sequel, that justifies continuing on, despite the failure? Nope, sorry. If they have any intention of making such a sequel woke, that's why it's better, as noted before, if it all came to a halt. Mainly because all these movies based on toy merchandise have long gotten silly, and they really don't add up to escapist entertainment any more than art. I guess it's because the special effects have also long gotten tiresome, as I may have argued before, and that's why when I watch live action, I prefer dramas based on acting talent, or anything of the sort where special effects are kept to a minimum, and animation, again, makes an alternative for sci-fi with better potential. But again, Hollywood won't consider animation, and that's only bringing down variety and competition a lot more.

Veteran actor from X-Men films made offensive comments about Donald Trump and his residence

Warner Todd Huston at Breitbart says veteran actor Ian McKellan, who played Magneto in the live action X-Men films in the past quarter century, is the latest performer with comics-to-movie connections who's made offensive comments about the USA president:

Disney’s Marvel film star Sir Ian McKellen is boasting about fantasizing about destroying President Donald Trump’s home at his Mar-a-Lago resort during his scenes in the upcoming superhero blockbuster, Avengers: Doomsday.

McKellen will reprise his X-Men role as Magneto, the mutant with the power over metals, in the film set to be released in December. And in comments made in Rome, the 87-year-old actor said that directors Anthony and Joe Russo told him to envision something personal when he was wreaking havoc as Magneto, according to The Guardian.

McKellen told his audience that “they got me at one point to destroy New Jersey.”

The actor then rose from his chair onstage to give a dramatic recreation of his thoughts during the scene, and said that the Russos “told me to look more furious: make it look as if you hate what you’re destroying. So, I stood there and I shouted: ‘Mar-a-Lago!'”

And the filmmakers had no complaints? Well, they have indicated they're leftists, so I guess that explains something. This does not make me look forward to watching whatever new films they're producing any more than anything else, and it says quite a bit more about the actors who were part of the X-Men movies as well. The Marvel movieverse has been on the decline for the past several years, and this kind of PR is not going to improve fortunes by much either.

Rob Liefeld whines again

Popverse says dreadful artist Liefeld is complaining that he's not listed as a writer/artist in one of Marvel's latest archives for New Mutants:

Rob Liefeld has never been shy about his opinions on... er, anything, really. But for our purposes, he's never held back on his opinions over how the work he did at Marvel has been handled by the company. Take, for example, a recent expression of his frustration regarding his work on the '90s X-Men title The New Mutants, in which Liefeld introduced perhaps his most famous creations, Deadpool and Cable. According to the seminal artist and Image Comics co-founder, a new collection of said comics miscredits him egregiously.

Liefeld's thoughts came via a social media post made June 6, in conjunction with Marvel's advertisement for an upcoming comic book omnibus. Specifically, that omnibus is The New Mutants Volume 4, which as some fans brought to Liefeld's attention, only credits him as an artist.

"Yes," said Liefeld, "despite writing the best selling issues of New Mutants ever published I am not listed [as a writer]."

But wasn't Louise Simonson the writer at the time? The only issues where he appeared to have credit as writer - or perhaps more precisely, as plotter - were the last 3, issues 98-100, and even there, it wasn't alone. It was with Fabian Nicieza. And I also noticed, interestingly enough, that issues 92 and 97 had Bob Hall and Guang Yap, respectively, credited as artists, not Liefeld. So it sounds like Liefeld's once again trying to give tabloid news sites like Popverse more material they can exploit for trivial matters, and simultaneously, Liefeld's trying to pretend he's one of the finest artists around, even though he's not. Rather hiliariously, he even admits he only "wrote" the last 3 issues in 1983-91's New Mutants:

Thus began a series of posts in which Liefeld not only voiced his annoyance of the oversight, but reminded readers of the success of the comic book the omnibus collects.

"It was through my writing that issues #98-100 sold 2.2 million copies," Liefeld said in another post. "That is more than the entire year previous to my joining. New Mutants was selling 110.000 copies in a sea of X-books selling 350k and above."

No kidding. It sold that much with his otherwise awful art? Well, I do recall the P.T. Barnum phrase "a sucker is born every minute", but even so, if anybody actually bought stories where it's not clear he was the writer per se as Nicieza was, it's a terrible shame they had to help prolong the dreadful career of such a pretentious artist.

Finally, Liefeld stepped back from his own experience to point at other artists who've conveyed their exasperation not just with the comic book industry, but with Marvel itself.

"In closing, Marvel treats creators like shit," Liefeld concluded, "They always have. Jack Kirby sued them. For two decades. The estate wants to sweep it under the rug now that they settled, but it turned Jack’s stomach. Steve Ditko sued Marvel. They can’t help but create the magic makers like shit."

Oops, did he really say "create" instead of "treat"? And since when was Liefeld a "magic maker" with that awful art of his, where he couldn't draw feet, let alone consistent panels with coherent art? Liefeld, alas, appears to be pretty arrogant, and with that kind of approach, is it any wonder he's otherwise on the sidelines now? It's a real shame Marvel had to hire him to work on at least 2 comics in their unsuccessful Heroes Reborn "experiment", which was like a textbook example of how mainstream publishers aren't marketing and selling on merit. Liefeld's only making clear he doesn't think his sloppy, derivative art is an embarrassment to the whole concept of artmaking. Yet all these pretentious news sites see fit to lavish attention on him they likely wouldn't give to writers like Chuck Dixon, or even artists like Brandon Peterson and Kirby himself, who're more talented than Liefeld ever was back in the day.

All we learn from this is that Liefeld's got a pointless grudge against Marvel, proving they shouldn't have ever done business with him in the first place. And Image shouldn't have let him take part in the company's founding.

A new book about the art of Michael Turner features some for a most inappropriate miniseries he worked on, and 3 unsuitable contributors

In this IGN article on Yahoo, it's announced that Aspen, the company originally founded by the late artist Michael Turner, worked on a crowdfunded art book featuring art he did for DC, and wouldn't you know it, one that includes some embarrassments based on what they were used for:

The late Michael Turner was undoubtedly one of the most popular comic book artists of the 2000s, with a proven track record of driving up sales on a series every time his art adorned the cover. Clover Press previously celebrated Turner's Marvel resume with The Marvel Art of Michael Turner, and now they're back with The DC Art of Michael Turner.

[...] The DC Art of Michael Turner is a 200-page 9" x 12" hardcover that reprints the artist's work on titles like Superman/Batman, The Flash, Justice League, Identity Crisis. The book includes an introduction by Ghost Machine editor-in-chief and former DC Comics Chief Creative Officer Geoff Johns, as well as commentary from Jeph Loeb, Brad Meltzer, and Dan DiDio.

Turner may have been a talented artist, and some of his contributions to Image's Top Cow affiliate years ago were impressive, but what he drew for DC was all-style-no-substance, and that he would actually draw covers for Identity Crisis was disgusting and an embarrassing stain on his portfolio. I remember when Alex Ross told how he'd been asked to draw artwork for the vile miniseries that was offensive to victims of sexual assault, and in contrast to Turner, Ross wisely refused the offer. How is it Ross understood a story with a belittling structure could tarnish his resume if he'd participated, but Turner couldn't? And how come a site like Get Your Comic On is also obscuring the topics involved by putting one of the illustrations Turner did for Identity Crisis at the top of their article? Also, lest we forget, that Meltzer, Johns and DiDio gave introduction commentary for this project is also bad news. As for Loeb, his writing from the times was hardly a big deal.

What makes this additionally troubling is when a "feminist" site like Girl Talk HQ glosses over some art connected with one of the most repulsive miniseries of 2004:

In celebration of the Kickstarter campaign launch today, we are sharing some exclusive images from ‘THE DC ART OF MICHAEL TURNER’ – the artist’s iconic interpretations of Wonder Woman, which you won’t find on any other media publication!

One of those panels they highlight is a cover Turner drew for Identity Crisis, an issue where WW was made to look absurdly mechanical in-story, showing her using her lasso on an interrogated crook without actually showing her face, IIRC. That doesn't trouble them? I guess that says all you need to know about how some feminists aren't the responsible folks they'd like everybody to think they are. Oddly enough, another feminist/SJW writing for Book Riot actually woke up and recognized what was wrong with Identity Crisis 15 years afterwards, though she dampened the impact of her essay by continuing to embrace other forms of wokeness, IIRC. When will the writers for this other feminist site begin to wake up?

Comic Book Club Live also glossed over the news, and they say:

Like other volumes in The DC Art Of… line, the high-end edition will come in a 9″ x 12″ deluxe hardcover, featuring over 200 pages of art and commentary. The campaign will also feature an ashcan, a “sketchbook” edition featuring black and white art, “a Kickstarter-exclusive slipcase and dust jacket, and multiple DC Portfolio sets spotlighting Turner’s unforgettable takes on Wonder Woman, Superman, Batman, and The Flash.” In addition, Geoff Johns has provided an introduction alongside “thoughts” from Jeph Loeb, Brad Meltzer and Dan Didio. Hopefully those thoughts will come in thought bubbles, but probably not.

And that says all you need to know where they stand regarding those charlatans too. Almost a decade after the Harvey Weinstein scandal, and they're continuing to sugarcoat some of the worst stories to bring down DC/Marvel over the past quarter century. That doesn't speak well for alleged "fandom".

Turner may have some decent artwork to build an art book with, but Identity Crisis taints the covers he foolishly drew for that. I would not advise backing the crowdfunding campaign for this financially, and when it comes to his DC artwork, I don't think it amounted to much in the end. Though if it matters, it was reprehensible when DC reprinted the Superman/Batman story reintroducing Supergirl in an anthology with censored panels for the girls' rear ends, yet violence against Lois Lane went by without any opposition. This was when DiDio was still in charge, and that too says quite a bit about his MO. So why is Aspen welcoming him to provide commentary for their new art book project? He's just one more reason why not to give the book any financial backing, because what if some of the profits go into his pockets? So I'm sorry, but I would strongly advise anybody who's a realist not to give this book about Turner's DC art any money.

Turner may have been a talented artist, I won't deny that. But again, he made some very sad mistakes that make it necessary to separate art from artist and/or take it with a grain of salt when it comes to his own portfolio.

What Polygon says about MTG cards based on Marvel illustrations

Polygon wrote a fluff-coated article about several cards from a new Magic: The Gathering collaboration with Marvel, and they sugarcoated at least a few things involving history, past and present. First, what's said about Contest of Champions:

Nowadays, Marvel Comics launches a new big event every year that’s all about stacking as many characters together as possible and seeing what happens. Well, it all started here. Marvel Super Hero Contest of Champions is Marvel Comics’ first-ever limited series. Published from June to August 1982, it was written by Mark Gruenwald and penciled by John Romita Jr. It introduced the concept of crossovers, events involving characters from different comic books, getting together to face a big crisis that usually has an impact on the entire Marvel continuity.

Mark Gruenwald was an ante-litteram visionary. (Just check out his Squadron Supreme run: it was one of the first politically charged big superhero comics, before that became a cool thing to do.) Contest of Champions planted the seed of what would become a standard practice for the House of Ideas, and while that series is less ambitious than Crisis on Infinite Earths, it predates DC Comics’ famous crossover event by three years.

So that's a good thing these comics were "politically charged"? And that crossovers crowded out creativity? Wow, the writer here certainly isn't approaching this from an objective viewpoint, despite any suggestions to the contrary. Contest of Champions may have been one of the first limited series they published (years later, these would be more likely to be described as miniseries), but that doesn't make it one of the best. Nor is it truly a good thing we had to see Marvel/DC destroyed creatively by only so many crossovers that came about since. What does the writer even mean by "less ambitious"? Does that mean it didn't go far enough as Crisis did by killing at least a few characters like Supergirl and 2nd Flash Barry Allen? If that's what he means, that's quite tasteless, and the worst part is that years later, Marvel did go the killing route in some way or other with a number of characters, and in cases like Scarlet Witch's, subjected her to a fate worse than death in Advengers: Disassembled. Also vital to note is that around the turn of the century, that's when keeping consistent with continuity and decent characterization began to deteriorate more than ever before in the mainstream, and it's had a disastrous effect on storytelling cohesion ever since. Now, here's something even more unworthy of a MTG card:

This is more a personal favorite than one of the all-time greats, perhaps, but it’s still a milestone in Iron Man continuity. Written by Warren Ellis with art by Adi Granov, “Extremis” is a six-issue story arc that ran in Iron Man between 2005 and 2006. It introduces the Extremis virus (also featured in the movie Iron Man 3), which upgrades Tony Stark with real superpowers, allowing him to connect to his armor and other machines through a neural interface. Extremis is perhaps the last interesting Iron Man story published (except for the magnificent miniseries Infamous Iron Man, where Doctor Doom takes the mantle of Iron Man). It transformed Tony Stark from “former alcoholic rich guy in a suit” into his modern image of a futurist, before that term was spoiled by creepy technocrats.

Seriously, I can't see what's so appealing about Ellis' writing that he has to have his story become the subject of a trading card. Also note how the columnist sugarcoats one of the modern stories where the hero's replaced by a villain in the armor, or costume. As though it weren't bad enough Spider-Man had to be mind-switched with Dr. Octopus. And doesn't giving Tony actual superpowers contradict and defeat how he was first created, as a guy whose power was the armor suits he built? That was the emphasis for many years, and coming when these "real" powers did, it was just too late to work out anyway. So why does this tale of all things need a MTG card? And then, there's Infinity Gauntlet:

Thanos and his infamous Snap in Avengers: Infinity War became the most iconic moment of the golden age of MCU movies. 27 years before Josh Brolin “blipped” half of the universe away, Jim Starlin wrote one of the most important sagas in Marvel history, bringing back the character he created two decades prior. The six-issue limited series The Infinity Gauntlet shows the outcome of Thanos’s quest to collect the Infinity Gems (shown in The Thanos Quest). The Mad Titan has obtained absolute power over creation, but will it be enough to please his cold mistress, Lady Death?

Before Hollywood success went to his head (and ruined his comic book characterizations), Thanos was one of the most fascinating Marvel characters, a villain fueled by philosophical musings and unrequited love more than lust for power or conquest. This is Starlin’s Thanos at his best, and the incredible art by George Pérez and Ron Lim brings to life an apocalyptic tale unfolding at the edge of the universe, where gods are brought to heel and a Mad Titan finally gets his wish.

I think even this crossover can be subject to some objective viewpoints. The Infinity minis may not have had as many crossover connections as others did, but IIRC, they still had some nonetheless, and that was simply appalling, because it was entirely unnecessary in order to make it a story worth reading. That said, interesting that here, the writer actually admits Thanos' characterization was ruined later on, though it'd be a lot better if somebody commenting on these topics gave more attention to heroes who underwent the same. And then, Secret Wars gets fluff-coated:

If Contest of Champions opened the door for crossovers, Secret Wars smashed those doors down. Conceived as a big marketing gambit that would tie in with a Mattel toy line and an RPG from TSR, this massive 1984-1985 event spanned over 12 issues of the main limited series and more than two dozen crossover issues of ongoing series. Written by Marvel Comics editor-in-chief Jim Shooter, with art by Mike Zeck, Bob Layton, and John Beatty, the series sees a host of heroes and villains transported to a mysterious planet dubbed Battleworld by an omnipotent entity known as the Beyonder, and forced into an all-out battle for survival.

In one of the most iconic moments in the series, the villain Molecule Man drops an entire mountain range (yup) on the heroes’ heads. The good guys barely survive in a wedge dug by Iron Man and Hulk, but the Green Goliath is carrying the entire weight of the mountains on his shoulders. To buy enough time to build a contraption to escape, Reed Richards insults Hulk since getting angrier makes him even stronger. Who else could have come up with this plan if not Marvel’s number one a-hole? It’s a pretty amazing moment and still one of Hulk’s greatest feats of strength.

That still doesn't justify the way Secret Wars was produced, as something where almost every Marvel title had to reference this story according to editorial mandate. Granted, unlike Crisis on Infinite Earths, it wasn't written for the sake of killing off any characters the editors considerd expendable, as DC did with Silver Age Supergirl. But it still has responsibility to shoulder for leading later to the disaster we see in the mainstream today, one that nobody writing these puff pieces has any intention of arguing against. And then, what does the writer say about one of Stan Lee's last creations:

Speaking of artists who loved to push the envelope, John Byrne’s run on Sensational She-Hulk in the late ‘80s and early ‘90s marked one of the few truly avant-garde moments in Marvel Comics history. Byrne took a minor character in the House of Ideas’ roster and turned it into a fourth-wall-breaking sensation. Towering over the series’ covers with a dominating, ultra-sexualized physicality, Jen Walters was threatening readers to rip up their X-Men collection if they didn’t buy her book, and openly mocking comics’ narrative tropes.

There’s no point in denying that the sexist tinges of Jen’s representation in the series were targeted at an audience of hormone-fueled, adolescent boys, but Byrne was still able to turn a relatively obscure character into one of the few culturally relevant women in Marvel Comics, at least for a while. It’s very cool that Magic’s homage to that historic run shows She-Hulk literally breaking the fourth wall.

Fascinating how the writer seems to be speaking with a forked tongue in regards to sexuality, though Byrne did have very questionable moments in his resume, including the time when he wrote a Superman story where Big Barda fell under the mind control of an alien from Apokalips named Sleez, who also brought Supes to heel, and then took them to a snuff filmmaker so he could film them engaging in sex?!? And you thought this kind of stuff was just relegated to fanfiction! That said, I think what the writer's telling about how Byrne handled Jen Walters is hypocritical, and certainly exploits it for the sake of pushing sex-negative visions simultaneously. At least the She-Hulk series Byrne launched during 1989-94 is more worthy of a MTG card than some of the above examples.

Anyway, this would've been a lot more charming news if it hadn't been for some of the more modern choices made like an Ellis story, and if it hadn't been for the realization the MTG franchise was subject to wokeification in the past decade. Who knows if they've reversed course since then? If not, that also dampens the interest.

How a classic back issue of Action Comics was stolen from actor Nicholas Cage, and when later returned, he sold it on auction

Far Out Magazine wrote about the history of actor Nicholas Cage's onetime ownership of an Action Comics premiere issue, which was once stolen from his estate but later tracked and returned:

Cage is such a big fan of DC’s flagship hero that he named his son Kal-El, which is Superman’s name on his native planet. He was famously tapped to don the famous blue suit in a movie directed by Tim Burton, but this never came to pass. He did voice the ‘Man of Steel’ in Teen Titans Go! to the Movies and appeared as the character via CGI in The Flash, although he wasn’t too pleased with this cameo.

Considering what a fiasco that movie was in more ways than one, it's no wonder the film would be such an embarrassment. Most angering is that it drew from what terrible writer Geoff Johns set up around 2009. DC may have moved back to spotlighting Wally West more than Barry Allen 12 years after that, but the damage had long been done, and Johns was among those responsible for starting it.

At one point in time, Cage owned a pivotal piece of Superman history. In 1997, he paid $110,000 for a copy of Action Comics #1, the comic book in which Clark Kent made his debut. This must have been a dream come true for the self-professed superhero nut, but his bliss wouldn’t last for long. Just two years later, a number of comics were stolen from Cage’s private collection, including Action Comics #1. One of the most valuable and important comics in history was now missing, never to be seen again…or was it?

Vincent Zurzolo, President of Metropolis Comics and Comic Connect and the man who sold the issue to Cage in the first place, warned the actor to keep an eye out.

It’s unlikely that whoever pinched the comic did so because they were a fan; they stole it to sell it, so all they had to do was wait. Sure enough, in 2011, Zurzolo and his partner Steve Fischler stumbled across a seller flogging what looked suspiciously like Cage’s copy of Action Comics #1.

Law enforcement saw to it the copy was returned to Cage, who later sold it again on auction to pay off some debts, and he was lucky to retrieve the stolen items, but it's still regrettable he's among many people who're setting poor examples by keeping old back issues around and not donating to museums. I'm sure there's plenty of archives that'd pay just as good as an auction can for products they can put on display for history exhibits. Yet all these prominent people only think of storing them away for who knows what reasons, and it sure doesn't speak well for Hollywood any more than more ordinary speculators.

NYC pushes a propaganda comic to oppose deportation of illegal immigrants

The New York Daily News wrote a fawning report about a new comic published by NYC's education department that tells illegal immigrants about their "rights" as the Trump administration makes an effort to deport interlopers who entered the USA without proper permits:

As deportations rise in President Trump’s second term, New York City schools have made efforts on several fronts to inform immigrant families of their rights in a sanctuary city.

But education officials were in search of a medium to better share the information with young people.

This week, the NYC Department of Education released “Know Your Rights,” a 32-page comic book based on real events in the news and with guidance from Mayor Mamdani’s immigrant affairs office. In an introduction, the authors wrote their hope is the comic can help educate the public and prepare immigrant students and their families for potential encounters with Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or “ICE.” [...]

The rights presented in the comic represent a doubling down on New York’s sanctuary city laws, which, among other protections, maintain that non-local law enforcement, such as ICE, can’t enter a public school without a judicial warrant.

The city’s approach has been a flashpoint of controversy amid the Trump immigration crackdown. The Trump administration has tried going after the city’s policies for undocumented immigrants, including by filing a federal lawsuit last summer. Mamdani signed an executive order as recently as February reinforcing New York’s sanctuary status.

The comic book is the latest school-based initiative aimed at supporting immigrant students — a list that also includes a program that connects teachers with resources to support newcomer families, and informal networks of parents and advocates who serve as rapid response teams when a child or their parent is detained. It’s the 42nd comic published by the city’s public school system, which uses in-house graphic texts as part of its social studies and civics curriculum.

The comic is expected to be distributed in schools, alongside a resource guide and lesson plan for educators. So far, 75,000 copies of the comic have been printed in English, and 75,000 in Spanish. Education officials said they’re on track to translate the comic into a dozen other languages in a digital format this month,. [...]

In one of the stories, readers meet the fictional Alfonso family as an ICE agent knocks on their apartment door in Jamaica, Queens. Rodrigo Alfonso tells his son, Diego, to open the door. But Diego knows his rights and tells his dad: “Not yet.”

Rodrigo is uncertain, but at his son’s urging, complies. The graphic text instructs Rodrigo to ask the agents, some depicted in face masks to shield their identity, who they are, what they’re there for, and if they have a warrant to enter his home. The vignette shows the importance of informing students of their rights, Samuels said, “so that they can be advocates for themselves and for others.”

So in other words, the comic is lecturing all that law enforcement does not apply to anyone who enters the country without documented permits, no matter what they do upon entry. But that's the sad reality NYC's become practically in over several years, and now they're tarnishing the comics medium with something so insulting to the intellect, and in contrast to a lot of older comics stories from decades past, the NYC education department's comic villifies law enforcement whose job is to prevent criminals from infiltrating. This all reminds me of a line from the 1968 movie What's So Bad About Feeling Good? where a comical toucan said in a word balloon, "New York is a nice place to visit, but I wouldn't want to live here." And it would be ill-advised to invest in the Big Apple's businesses with the way they could be going too.

Since when was Supergirl always stuck in Superman's shadow?

The Conversation wrote a sugarcoated item about Supergirl and the upcoming movie, that rather predictably takes no objective view of the Maid of Might's history:

Since her official debut in 1959, Supergirl has struggled to emerge from the shadow of her cousin, Superman. So it’s a bold move that the second cinematic release in the newly rebooted DC Universe will be Supergirl.

Milly Alcock first appeared as Supergirl in the epilogue to Superman (2025). Her Supergirl is a brash “party girl” – an immediate contrast to David Corenswet’s squeaky clean rendition of Superman. Based on the comic book Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow (2021) by Tom King and Bilquis Evely, she is a traumatised character, dealing with the destruction of her home planet of Krypton. “I have no people,” Supergirl laments in the trailer.

Well that's the problem: it's based more on the overrated King's story than a screenplay that could stand on its own. Might I also add I don't find the posters showing Supergirl wearing a trenchcoat appealing? The sunglasses may be cool, but the coat ruins everything. And I don't think Supergirl was always in Superman's shadow as they say, if only because there were times in the past where she did have solo adventures printed. The problem is the publishers didn't always see her as the storytelling vehicle she could be if they wanted to invest in serious merit-based writing. And the article has a pretty big goof in the following:

However, Supergirl was not always so introspective. The character and her alter ego, Kara Zor-El, first appeared in 1938, to cash in on the popularity of Superman. She was a preppy teenager who played a supporting helpmate role, allowing Superman to display his paternal side.

Publishers DC Comics also flirted with the concept of Superwoman. A 1943 story had Superman’s girlfriend, reporter Lois Lane, dream that she was Superman’s female counterpart. In her book Supergirl: Contemporary Feminist Reboot of a Hapless DC Comic Helpmate (2022), Batya Weinbaum suggests this moment reflected the “changing position of women in wartime”. In a 1947 story, Lois Lane, Superwoman! from Superman issue #45, Lane is convinced she has superpowers, only to discover she is the victim of a ruse where Superman is using his influence to simulate the experience. This prompts her frustrated exclamation: “You men who try to keep women weak and defenceless – I hate you!”

Lane may well have been addressing the DC editors who published her adventures. In his cultural history of comic book heroines, comic book historian Mike Madrid outlines an excerpt from 1950s-era DC Comics’ editorial policy which reluctantly accepts stories featuring women, but only if the female characters are “secondary in importance”.

Somehow, it's hard to believe a company that readily published Wonder Woman all these years would have a problem publishing anything with a lady in the lead. Either way, they did have some impressive lady co-stars created at the time, and who went on to see better writing as time went by. Also notice the hilarious goof in the year of debut, which is actually Superman's, not Supergirl's, which was originally early 1959.

As for what Lois Lane was written telling in 1947, well, that could easily describe the situation decades later, when men and women alike who had lenient views on discrimination led to the publication of Identity Crisis. Yet that sees no mention in this puff piece, and that's the considerable weakness here. As is the following "explanation" why Kara Zor-El was originally terminated in Crisis on Infinite Earths:

Whereas Superman (played by Christopher Reeve) was introduced in 1978 by the same producers with a daring rescue of a plummeting helicopter, Helen Slater’s Supergirl performs an aerial ballet and frolics with woodland creatures. In comics, Supergirl fared even worse. The character was killed off in 1985’s Crisis on Infinite Earths storyline, partly because of her threat to Superman’s unique status as “the last son of Krypton”, and partly because of the film’s disappointing box office takings.

Excuse me? What kind of monumentally stupid explanation is that? The staff may have wanted to establish Kal-El as the last Kryptonian at the time. But that doesn't make Kara a "threat" to said status. What the writer says is disgusting, and undermines any valid lamentation he's making, though he's right the editors used the film's failure as a justification, which is also sick. And then he adds insult to injury when he says:

In comic books, however, death is never permanent. Kara Zor-El and Supergirl were resurrected in 2004 in The Supergirl from Krypton. There was an attempt to add nuance to the character, with a greater emphasis on the trauma she suffered from witnessing the loss of her home planet. But this was rather undermined by various revealing costumes clearly designed to satisfy the male gaze.

And this inherently wrong because? Even years before, there were times when Kara Zor-El was drawn as quite a fashion plate, and the bare midriff costume was actually introduced around the turn of the century, at the middle of Peter David's run on the new take on Supergirl (I think Leonard Kirk was the artist), which was developed out of a character who first appeared in 1988. The real reasons to complain are that no concrete story accompanied the reintroduction in the Superman/Batman title published at the time, or even the solo title that followed, and that a very bad man accused of sexual misconduct was in charge of editing, that being Eddie Berganza, who was only fired from DC in 2017. If there's a valid complaint to make about fetishizing in what he oversaw, it can be blamed on Berganza, and also writer Jeph Loeb. Oddly, when Kara was reintroduced at the time, the figure as drawn by Michael Turner wasn't so busty, if at all. As for the costume, if there's anything wrong with it, and possibly has been for a long time, it's how it was long-sleeved, which makes it look silly. The article, interestingly enough, notes that the TV show starring Melissa Benoist appears to have followed up on the PC view of Supergirl's outfits:

In the pilot episode she finally strikes out on her own with the dramatic rescue of an airliner, assuming the mantle of Supergirl. In a show that employed several female writers and became known for its positive representation of LGBTQ+ issues, problematic topics such as Supergirl’s infantilising name and costume were directly addressed.

Kara refuses to wear revealing versions of the costume from the character’s comic book past. In discussions with her employer, CatCo Worldwide Media CEO Cat Grant, she is told: “I’m a girl. And your boss. And powerful. And rich, and hot, and smart. So, if you perceive Supergirl as anything less than excellent, isn’t the real problem you?” Significantly, Grant is portrayed by actor Calista Flockhart, known for the Ally McBeal series – a show that sparked debates about feminism and women in the workplace in the late 1990s.

Well if all they care about is putting down even creators with more common sense, along with pushing an agenda that did more harm than good, those are just some of the reasons why it's regrettable the Maid of Might's potential has suffered ruin for years. The TV show became increasingly political, and that's why it's more an embarrassment than a classic today. At the end:

The 2021 comic book Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow follows the young alien Ruthye Marye Knoll, who recruits Supergirl to seek revenge after her father is murdered. The story is told from Ruthye’s point of view, the fractured narrative lending the story a fatalistic quality. The narration also emphasises the mythic quality of Supergirl, “who lost everything and kept walking”.

It remains to be seen how closely the film will follow the philosophical source material. Meanwhile, in the pages of the latest DC comic book, writer and artist Sophie Campbell has returned to the brighter tone of the 1960s version of the character, merged with the sensibilities of the 2015 television series. The many interpretations of Supergirl continue to reveal the character’s durability and versatility.

If memory serves, the writer of the latest series is really a man with the name Ross, and it sure is ironic somebody who claimed earlier the outfits in post-2004 Supergirl were a problem suddenly makes no such arguments when somebody of "Sophie Campbell"'s standing is helming the new series. Predictably, no objective view is taken of King's overrated story either, and that takes away any impact this puff piece might've had.

Since the new movie's also a subject, Polygon says the director, as much as the screenwriter, did draw "inspiration" from both King's story and what the assigned screenwriter turned out:

"I very deliberately started with the script that Ana wrote," Gillespie says, "and I put together a lot of visuals around that coming from the script, trying to make something that I would be excited about and that had this grit and flavor of the Supergirl character, Kara." [...]

"After that, I went back and visited Tom King's Woman of Tomorrow and took some images from that," he says, "but I didn't want to start there because I didn't want to just do the comic book."

Unfortunately, that's just what he did nevertheless, and borrowing even remotely from something that pretentious doesn't help a bit. Nor did injecting feminism into the narratives of the TV show or even the comics themselves avail, but that's certainly a moot point by now. It remains to be seen what the box office results will be for this new Supergirl movie, and based on how it's crafted, I'd rather stay home and read the comics I own instead. These articles are just more examples of stuff that ultimately doesn't help the Maid of Might's reputation at all.